microsoft service pack 2

Microsoft Service Pack 2

It's Out There, but be prepared.

Service Pack 2 for XP was released last month and many of you

installed it - and some of you have had bad experiences. Lots of you

had no problems at all, but others weren't so lucky.

Some of you have had problems with DOS-based games and online games

while others are having problems with peer-to-peer software. So of you

are experiencing timeouts with ftp type software. Others have crashed

and could not function at all. Others it was unclear for there was not

enough information given to ascertain probability.

SP2 limits connections per port to 10 (this is to help slow the spread

of viruses and worms such as Sasser), so programs that open

connections to a lot of different destinations, are slowed down, too.

A few users are reporting some slowdowns, although many others say

they haven't noticed any change in performance. New OS installs have

not problems if everything has been installed after the SP2. A few

others say XP is faster after the installation. Many say the boot up

process takes slightly longer. Lots of people have complained about

the time required to install SP2, typically from half an hour to an

hour, depending on your machine (some of this is download time and due

to the high demand for the patch).

I have also heard that SP2 can slow down FireWire (IEEE 1394) 800

devices, but can be fixed by reinstalling the SP2 FireWire drivers

after you install SP2.

I, along with others have found conflicts with ZoneAlarm. This is

probably because SP2 turns on the Windows Firewall by default. If you

use a third party firewall product, you need to turn off the Windows

Firewall.

SP2 may affect users of Outlook Web Access (OWA).

Some large companies, including IBM, are telling their employees not

to download and install SP2 until they've had more time to test it. If

you are using your computer for business I suggest you do the same

unless you want to be one of the many that have to fiddle, restore or

uninstall to function again.

Besides the problems that some of you have had the pop-up blocker that

SP2 adds to Internet Explorer is getting a big Kudos. Another new well

liked feature is the Add-ons manager. This feature is added to the

Tools menu and it shows you what has been added to IE and lets you

disable them. This is great for turning off those bothersome spyware

toolbars that get installed "accidentally."